Читать книгу Ticonderoga - G. P. R. James - Страница 6

When Brooks had left them, half an hour was spent in one of those pleasant after-breakfast dreams, when the mind seems to take a moment's hesitating pause before grappling with the active business of the day. But little was said; each gazed forth from window or from door; each thought perhaps of the other, and each drank in sweet sensations from the scene before the eyes.

Each thought of the other, I have said; and when such is the case, how infinite are the varieties into which thought moulds itself. Walter paused and pondered upon the stranger's state and objects--asked himself who he was, what could be his errand--how--why he came thither? Major Kielmansegge he knew him not to be. A chance word had shown him not only his rank and station, but shown also that there was a secret to be kept--a secret to which perhaps his imagination lent more importance than it deserved. He was an English peer, the young man knew, one of a rank with which in former years he had been accustomed to mingle, and for which, notwithstanding all that had passed, and lapse of time and varied circumstances, he retained an habitual veneration. But what could have led a British peer to that secluded spot? What could be the circumstances which, having led him thither, had suddenly changed his purpose of proceeding onward, and induced him to remain a guest in his father's cottage in a state of half-concealment? Could it be Lord Loudon, he asked himself, the commander-in-chief of the royal forces, whose conduct had been so severely censured in his own ears by the man just gone?

It was not by accident that Lord H---- and Edith Prevost met there. It was for the working out of their mutual destiny under the hand of God; for if there be a God, there is a special providence.

"This is very lovely, Miss Prevost," said the young soldier, when the long meditative lapse was drawing to a close, "but I should think the scene would become somewhat monotonous. Hemmed in by these woods, the country round, though beautiful in itself, must pall upon the taste."

"Oh, no!" cried Edith, eagerly. "It is full of variety. Each day affords something new, and every morning walk displays a thousand fresh beauties. Let us go and take a ramble, if you have nothing better to do; and I will show you there is no monotony. Come, Walter, take your rifle, and go with us. Father, this is not your hour. Can you never come before the sun has passed his height and see the shadows fall the other way?"

"Mine is the evening hour, my child," answered Mr. Prevost, somewhat sadly, "but go, Edith, and show our noble friend the scenes you so much delight in. He will need something to make his stay in this dull place somewhat less heavy."

The stranger made no complimentary reply, for his thoughts were busy with Edith; and he was at that moment comparing her frank, unconscious, undesigning offer to lead him through love-like woods and glades, with the wily hesitation of a court coquette.

"Perhaps you are not disposed to walk," said Edith, marking his reverie, and startling him from it.

"I shall be delighted," he said, eagerly, and truly, too. "You must forgive me for being somewhat absent, Miss Prevost. Your father knows I have much to think of, though indeed thought at present is vain; and you will confer a boon by banishing that idle but importunate companion."

"Oh, then, you shall not think at all when you are with me," said Edith, smiling, and away she ran to cover her head with one of those black wimples very generally worn by the women of that day.

Beyond the cultivated ground, as you descended the gentle hill, lay the deep forest at the distance of some three hundred yards, and at its edge Edith paused and made her companion turn to see how beautiful the cottage looked upon its eminence, shaded by gorgeous maple trees in their gold and crimson garb of autumn, with a tall rock or two of gray and mossy stone rising up amidst them.

Lord H---- gazed at the house and saw that it was picturesque and beautiful--very different indeed from any other dwelling he had seen on the western side of the Atlantic; but there was absent thoughtfulness in his eyes, and Edith thought he did not admire it half enough.

"How strange are men's prejudices and prepossessions," said Lord H----, as they paused to gaze at a spot where a large extent of low woodland lay open to the eye below them. "We are incredulous of everything we have not seen, or to the conception of which we have not been led by very near approaches. Had anyone shown me, ere I reached these shores, a picture of an autumn scene in America, though it had been perfect as a portrait, hue for hue, or even inferior, in its striking coloring, to the reality, I should have laughed at it as a most extravagant exaggeration. Did not the first autumn you passed here make you think yourself in fairyland?"

"No; I was prepared for it," replied Edith. "My father had described the autumn scenery to me often before we came."

"Then was he ever in America before he came to settle?" asked her companion.

"Yes, once," answered Edith. She spoke in a very grave tone, and then ceased suddenly.

But her brother took the subject up with a boy's frankness, saying: "Did you never hear that my grandfather and my father's sister died in Virginia? He was in command there, and my father came over just before my birth."

"It is a long story and a sad one, my lord," said Edith, with a sigh; "but look now as we mount the hill, and see how the scene changes. Every step upon the hillside gives us a different sort of tree, and the brush disappears from amidst the trunks. This grove is my favorite evening seat, where I can read and think under the broad, shady boughs, with nothing but beautiful sights around me."

"Truly, this is an enchanting scene. It wants, methinks, but the figure of an Indian in the foreground; and there comes one, I fancy, to fill up the picture--stay! stay! We shall want no rifles! It is but a woman coming through the trees."

"It is Otaitsa--it is the Blossom!" cried Edith and Walter in a breath, as they looked forward to a spot where across the yellow sunshine as it streamed through the trees, a female figure, clad in the gaily embroidered and bright-colored gakaah, or petticoat, of the Indian women, was seen advancing with a rapid yet somewhat doubtful step. Edith, without pause or hesitation, sprang forward to meet the newcomer, and in a moment after the beautiful arms of the Indian girl who had sat with Walter in the morning were round the fair form of his sister, and her lips pressed on hers. There was a warmth and eagerness in their meeting unusual on the part of the red race; but while the young Oneida almost lay upon the bosom of her white friend, her beautiful dark eyes were turned toward her lover, as with a mixture of the bashful feelings of youth and the consciousness of having something to conceal, Walter, with a glowing cheek, lingered a step or two behind his sister.

"Art thou coming to our lodge, dear Blossom?" asked Edith; and then added, "Where is thy father?"

"We both come," answered the girl, in pure English, with no more of the Indian accent than served to give a peculiar softness to her tones. "I wait the Black Eagle here since dawn of day. He has gone toward the morning with our father the White Heron; for we heard of Hurons by the side of Corlear, and some thought the hatchet would be unburied. So he journeyed to hear more from our friends by Horicon, and bade me stay and tell you and your brother Walter to forbear that road if I saw you turn your eyes toward the east wind. He and the White Heron will be by your father's council fire with the first star."

A good deal of this speech was unintelligible to Lord H----, who had now approached, and on whom Blossom's eyes were turned with a sort of timid and inquiring look. But Walter hastened to interpret, saying: "She means that her father and the missionary, Mr. Gore, have heard that there are hostile Indians on the shores of Lake Champlain, and have gone down toward Lake George to inquire; for Black Eagle--that is her father--is much our friend, and he always fancies that my father has chosen a dangerous situation here, just at the verge of the territory of the Five Nations, or their Long House, as they call it."

"Well, come to the lodge with us, dear Blossom," said Edith, while her brother was giving this explanation. "You know my father loves you well, and will be glad to have the Blossom with us. Here, too, is an English chief dwelling with us, who knows not what sweet blossoms grow on Indian trees."

But the girl shook her head, saying: "Nay; I must do the father's will. It was with much praying that he let me come hither with him; and he bade me stay here from the white rock to the stream. So must I obey."

"But it may be dangerous," replied Edith, "if there be Hurons so near; and it is sadly solitary, dear sister."

"Then stay with me for a while," said the girl, who would not affect to deny that her lonely watch was somewhat gloomy.

"I will stay with her and protect her," cried Walter, eagerly; "but, dearest Blossom, if we should see danger, you must fly to the lodge."

"Yes, stay with her, Walter--oh, yes, stay with her," said the unconscious Edith; and so it was settled, for Otaitsa made no opposition, though with a cheek in which something glowed through the brown, and with a lip that curled gently with a meaning smile, she asked: "Perhaps my brother Walter would be elsewhere? He may find a long watch wearisome on the hill and in the wood."

"Let us stay a while ourselves," said Lord H----, seating himself on the grass and gazing forth with a look of interest over the prospect. "Methinks this is a place where one may well dream away an hour without the busiest mind reproaching itself for inactivity."

For two hours the four sat there on the hillside, beneath the tall, shady trees, with the wind breathing softly upon them, the lake glittering before their eyes, the murmur of the waterfall sending music through the air. But to the young Englishman these were but accessories. The fair face of Edith was before his eyes, the melody of her voice in his ears.

At length, however, they rose to go, promising to send one of the slaves from the house with food for Walter and Otaitsa at the hour of noon; and Lord H---- and his fair companion took their way back toward the house. The distance was not very far, but they were somewhat long upon the way. They walked slowly back, and by a different path from that by which they went; and often they stopped to admire some pleasant scene; and often Lord H---- had to assist his fair companion over some rock, and her soft hand rested in his. He gathered for her flowers--the fringed gentian and other late blossoms, and they paused to examine them closely and comment on their loveliness; and once he made her sit down beside him on a bank and tell him the names of all the different trees; and from trees his conversation went on into strange, dreamy, indefinite talk of human beings and human hearts. Thus noon was not far distant when they reached the house, and both Edith and her companion were very thoughtful.

Edith was meditative through the rest of the day. Was it of herself she thought? Was it of him who had been her companion through the greater part of the morning?

There had been no word spoken; there had been no sign given; there had been no intimation to make the seal tremble on the fountain, but the master of its destiny was near. She had had a pleasant ramble with one such as she seldom saw--and that was all.

There had been something that day in the manner of her brother Walter, a hesitation, and yet an eagerness, a timidity unnatural, with a warmth that spoke of passion, which had not escaped her eye. In the sweet Indian girl, too, she had seen signs not equivocal: the fluttering blush, the look full of soul and feeling; the glance suddenly raised to the boy's face and suddenly withdrawn; the eyes full of liquid light, now beaming brightly under sudden emotion, now shaded beneath the long fringe like the moon beneath a passing cloud.

For the first time it seemed to her that a dark, impenetrable curtain was falling between herself and all the ancient things of history; that all indeed was to be new, and strange, and different; and yet she loved Otaitsa well, and had in the last two years seen many a trait which had won esteem as well as love. The old Black Eagle, as her father was called, had ever been a fast and faithful ally of the English; but to Mr. Prevost he had attached himself in a particular manner. An accidental journey on the part of the old sachem had first brought them acquainted, and from that day forward the distance of the Oneida settlement was no impediment to their meeting. Whenever the Black Eagle left his lodge he was sure, in his own figurative language, to wing his flight sooner or later toward the nest of his white brother; and in despite of Indian habits, he almost invariably brought his daughter with him. When any distance or perilous enterprise was on hand, Otaitsa was left at the lodge of the English family, and many a week had she passed there at a time, loved by and loving all its inmates. It was not there, however, that she had acquired her perfect knowledge of the English language, or the other characteristics which distinguished her from the ordinary Indian women. When she first appeared there she spoke the language of the settlers as perfectly as they did, and it was soon discovered that from infancy she had been under the care and instruction of one of the English missionaries--at that time, alas! few--who had sacrificed all that civilized life could bestow for the purpose of bringing the Indian savages into the fold of Christ.

Mr. Prevost judged it quite right that Walter should stay with Otaitsa, and he even sent out the old slave Agrippa, who somehow was famous as a marksman, with a rifle on his shoulder, to act as a sort of scout upon the hillside, and watch anything bearing a hostile aspect.

After dinner, too, he walked out himself, and sat for an hour with his son and the Indian girl, speaking words of affection to her that sunk deep into her heart, and more than once brought drops into her bright eyes. No father's tenderness could exceed that he showed her, and Otaitsa felt as if he were almost welcoming her as a daughter.

Evening had not lost its light when a shout from Walter's voice announced that he was drawing nigh the house, and in a moment after he was coming across the cleared land with his bright young companion and two other persons. One was a tall redman, upward of six feet in height, dressed completely in the Indian garb, but without paint. He could not have been less than sixty years of age, but his strong muscles seemed to have set at defiance the bending power of time. He was as upright as a pine, and he bore his heavy rifle in his right hand as lightly as if it had been a reed. In his left he carried a long pipe, showing that his errand was one of peace, though in his belt were a tomahawk and a scalping knife; and he wore the sort of feather crown, or gostoweh, distinguishing the chief. The other man might be of the same age, or a little older. He, too, seemed active and strong for his years, but he wanted the erect and powerful bearing of the other, and his gait and carriage, as much as his features and complexion, distinguished him from the Indian. His dress was a strange mixture of ordinary European costume and that of the half-savage rangers of the forest. He wore a black coat, or one that had once been black, but the rest of his garments were composed of skins, some tanned into red leather, after the Indian fashion, some with the hair still on and turned outward. He bore no arms whatever, unless a very long, sharp-pointed knife could be considered a weapon, though in his hands it only served the unusual service of dividing his food or carving willow whistles for the children of the sachem's tribe.